GTP Cool Wall: 2009+ Citroen DS3

[Badasp5.0]

If the opportunity ever arises - and it's unlikely to in America, I admit - have a drive in a DS3, or a classic Mini, or a European hot hatch. You can only fully appreciate such things in context, and context leaves you better placed to judged a car's cool. Sitting up in (presumably rural?) New York state doesn't leave you best placed to judge a car that's in its element in a place like Paris.

Granted the same should go for Europeans judging American cars but that is to much to ask.

 

[Slash]

Translation for Americans: You don't deserve to judge a car's coolness. Or well, maybe just Slash.
And well, maybe just if you disagree regarding the mind-blowing performance of small cars and the way they feel v. the actual numbers.

Funny thing is, I can totally understand having spent so much of my life driving economy cars with less than 140 hp on a 4 speed auto in cars that were often well under 3000lbs.
Not quite as light as some of the stuff mentioned here but the idea remains the same.

So if I don't agree with what someone has to say, I somehow don't deserve to judge a cars coolness? I'm sorry but that's a bunch of bull:censored:.

Granted the same should go for Europeans judging American cars but that is to much to ask.

I agree. Sometimes I want to say take your over-engineered cars and shove it

 

[Roger the Horse]

 

[Stotty]

Small European shopping trolleys... Meh.

 

[Joey D]

You guys are making more out of what hfs was saying I believe.

He's right in saying you can't fully appreciate a car unless you consider it's context. I think muscle cars are more or less a waste of space, but put something like a Boss Mustang in the Woodward Dream Cruise or other similar events for older cars and it starts to make sense and may ever start being cool. A DS3 might not be cool in the backwater of New York, but put it cruising the streets at night in Paris down the Champs-Élysées and it starts to make sense too.

 

[Joel]

Love how defensive people get. Somehow HFS saying "consider the context" gets turned into him saying Yurope rulez, USA droolz.

 

[Azure Flare]

But there are other ways of designing a compact car. You can always take styling themes that were normal, but could already be considered sort of cute, in days gone by, and modernize and upscale them into something many straight males would never want within 50 miles of them

I'm guessing those heterosexual manly-men still question their own sexuality.

Seems muscle cars are pretty much the only thing that can be styled in a retro manner without becoming sissy cars.

All in the drive-train.

 

[White & Nerdy]

Nah, it's the looks, too. Seems 1950's barges and 1960's European compacts do not modernize well.

 

[Azure Flare]

The Beetle is a hairy-chested man car if it is a Turbo with a 6-speed painted black, and the retro-cool hubcaps can stay.

The Mini just keeps getting bigger and bigger, but the Cooper is still somewhat reminiscent of the original. The Countryman and Paceman needs to 🤬 off.

The Fiat 500 is the same way to a certain extent, but it needs to have the turbo 1.4L and Abarth badges to get my attention. Even though that there is one running around Carthage that is painted in a pastel green that I can't help but to look every time. (There is also a Tesla Model S, but I only see that every once in a while. Yes, it does have a Smith county plate on it.)

 

[homeforsummer]

You guys are making more out of what hfs was saying I believe.

He's right in saying you can't fully appreciate a car unless you consider it's context. I think muscle cars are more or less a waste of space, but put something like a Boss Mustang in the Woodward Dream Cruise or other similar events for older cars and it starts to make sense and may ever start being cool. A DS3 might not be cool in the backwater of New York, but put it cruising the streets at night in Paris down the Champs-Élysées and it starts to make sense too.

Love how defensive people get. Somehow HFS saying "consider the context" gets turned into him saying Yurope rulez, USA droolz.

Indeed.

I'm not sure whether @Kent's translation was a misunderstanding of what I wrote or merely being flippant, but whatever it was it's been entirely unhelpful.

I am not saying that someone can only vote on one of these utterly irrelevant-but-still-quite-fun threads unless they have direct experience of a car. If that were the case 95% of people voting would be unable to vote on 95% of the cars polled.

What I am saying is that if you've lived in a bubble your whole life (whether you're in the U.S. or Europe or sodding Bhutan) you may miss out on the experience of certain things that give you a more rounded view of the world. In this context that means cars. Someone who has grown up in the same town around the same pickup trucks their whole life is unlikely to consider that context when they judge a car cool or uncool.

@Slash has already read and apparently understood what I was getting at in my previous post, and amazingly @White & Nerdy has really put a lot of thought into his own explanation this time, but as usual a few others need it spelled out a little more simply.

 

[Cano]

You can only fully appreciate such things in context, and context leaves you better placed to judged a car's cool. Sitting up in (presumably rural?) New York state doesn't leave you best placed to judge a car that's in its element in a place like Paris.

You guys are making more out of what hfs was saying I believe.

He's right in saying you can't fully appreciate a car unless you consider it's context. I think muscle cars are more or less a waste of space, but put something like a Boss Mustang in the Woodward Dream Cruise or other similar events for older cars and it starts to make sense and may ever start being cool. A DS3 might not be cool in the backwater of New York, but put it cruising the streets at night in Paris down the Champs-Élysées and it starts to make sense too.

For adding something to this context thing, altough I don't know if it's worth a damn in the context of what's being discussed here, but I also think that cars that are completely out of context can be cool too.

I love seeing pictures of muscle cars prowling the streets of Japan or Europe, specially in some scenic small town and such. They look so out of place they're instantly cool, like "wtf is dis doing there" but in a good way. In the same vein, turn up at Cars & Coffee in California with one of these Citroens, specially something as scandalous as the Racing edition, and you'll have flocks of people scratching their heads. Cars that make people scratch their heads are cool as heck.

 

[Kent]

If we properly applied context then most of the "uncool" supercars would in fact be cool (track and those special driving roads or parked in a museum, etc).

Honestly, it seems like you can't even have a sense of humor around here.

That said, while it might seem like the issue at hand was lost to me, it was quite the opposite and I merely took the time to point out that not agreeing on cool status was equal to ignorance since it would mean someone only had experience with hillbilly trucks or big, heavy, American sedans. Call it context or say people don't understand unless it's spelled out for them, either way, you're still being as polite as possible about telling people that not seeing how a given car is cool is because of ignorance or close-mindedness (that's all without really addressing the overwhelming amount of assumption regarding just how much experience people have driving different cars, trucks, etc).

Fact is, when I stated that I agreed about how fun a small, under-powered car could be it was completely ignored.